History Class for B. Obama

At the last National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama confirmed that he has a big problem with history. Several years ago, he had stated that one of his uncles had helped liberate Auschwitz. Yesterday, he stated that one should not forget that, during the Crusades or the Inquisition, terrible deeds were made in the name of Christ and also stated that, in America, Slavery had often been justified in the name of Christ. Of course, he said so to put Islamic crimes into perspective.

Mister President, I believe it’s time for you to take a little history lesson…

-Unless you uncle was a Soviet soldier, he cannot have participated in the liberation of Auschwitz, which was liberated by the Red Army’s 332nd Rifles Division on January 27, 1945 while the US Army did not enter the German Reich before March of 1945.

-The Crusades were inspired by Pope Urban II in a speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The main reason was the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by the Fatimid Calif Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah who violently persecuted Eastern Christians and Jews. Then the Seldjukid Turks conquered Jerusalem in 1078, massacring its population and raiding Christian pilgrims on their way to the Holy City. Therefore, portraying the Crusades as arbitrary Christian violence is at best incomplete, at worst dishonest.

-You may want to know that the creation of Inquisition Courts in Europe was due to the intrusion of political power in religious affairs with secular leaders using accusations of heresy in a political agenda. By creating the Inquisition Courts, the Church did a first separation of Church and State by affirming that is was the Church’s duty, and not the State’s, to judge doctrinal orthodoxy. And Inquisition Courts were institutions that made precise, organized and personal inquiries to bebunk heretics and who didn’t burn entire villages without discrimination. These courts were horrible things, indeed, but they can’t be compared to Boko Haram’s or ISIS’ deeds.

-The Inquisition is precisely the institution which asked to put the Bible in the Forbidden Books Index (Index librorum prohibitorum) of the Catholic Church, during the Protestant Reformation, in 1559. Yes, you read it well. Reading the Bible was forbidden to common people for 4 centuries, a fact that isn’t surprising since Bible translations in common languages were already forbidden and since Catholic Dogma had priority over the Bible.

-Let me sum up these two first points: Crusaders went to war after Muslim persecutions and did it without reading the Bible because it was simply not available outside Monasteries, because it wasn’t recommended and even forbidden, and because, by the way, you had to be able to read and to understand Latin, which was understood only by the Clergy and some educated leaders. Later, with the Protestant Reformation, the more the Bible was read, the more Christian violence stopped because everybody could read by himself how much violence in the name of Christ is blatantly heretic ! Unfortunately, it is exactly the opposite that is happening in Islam in its current Sunni interpretation and the spreading of the Koran which is systematically cited by even the dumbest Jihadis.

-Slavery of black people is an African phenomenon, widely used by Africa’s black population and by North Africa’s Muslims, imported in America by Triangular Commerce and in which black slaves were mostly captured and sold by blacks themselves. Of course, white Christian slaveholders have found in the Bible verses that justified their property and exploitation of slaves but you can’t just say that without also saying that abolitionist movements were led by Christians such as John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, William Wilberforce who outlawed the Slave Trade in Great Britain, Abraham Lincoln who ended slavery in America or such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the famous abolitionist novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” who was the daughter, sister, wife and mother of Christian pastors. You would also be insulting the memory of Dr Martin Luther King, champion of Civil Rights for black people and who was a Christian Minister (and a staunch Zionist!)

So, Mister President, maybe you’re a brilliant lawyer but in history, you’re not worth a dime!